


Eighteen / Twenty-One / Twenty-Five

by TheSoulOfAStrawberry



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Coming of Age, Depression, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Future Fic, Ghost Politics, Identity Issues, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Politics, Realistic? Future fic I guess?, Running Away, lots of lore, no pp, three-shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 06:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10825227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoulOfAStrawberry/pseuds/TheSoulOfAStrawberry
Summary: Danny wondered how it came to pass that the person who’d benefitted least from the Danny Phantom phenomenon was himself.





	1. Eighteen

**Author's Note:**

> this began as just a little something to blow of steam and air out some headcanons, something of a more "realistic" future fic, but now has become something of a pet project in three parts. enjoy!

If Danny thought too hard about how easy it had been to disappear, it depressed him.

His parents weren’t ever going to win Parent of the Year award, but until the age of 14 or 15, he’d been led to believe there would always be someone there for him, to listen to his worries, to hold him, to offer advice, even if not a member of his family. Obviously, the event of becoming half-ghost was always going to change him in the eyes of his parents whether they knew or not, but it wasn’t for a few months after the accident with the Ghost Portal that it properly sunk in that he’d always be something of an outcast.

No, scratch that. It hadn’t properly hit him until just after his 18th birthday, four months back.

When he’d confided in his friends, Tucker had got it, but Sam hadn’t.

“You’ve gotta change the way you look at it Danny. You’re a bridge between ghosts and people. You can use that to bring about change; you have a lot of power beyond just ectoblasts and ice.”

Much as he loved her, Sam didn’t get it at all. It was fine for her: naturally smart and whether she liked it or not, filthy rich, she could have her teen years of rebellion, Goth fashion and casual ghost hunting and still get the stellar grades and financial support to study Graphic Design at some private college in California. But Tucker, who’d come out of a review meeting angrier than Danny had ever seen him after apparently being told “black boys don’t go to MIT” by the supervisor- he’d understood that no matter how talented you were, or how much good you did, there were always going to be people who spat your achievements right back in your face because of who you were.

He wasn’t sure what the difference had been between him and Tucker though, but one of them had made their dreams a reality and one was a jobless high-school dropout at 18. Maybe Tucker was just a better person than him, in more ways than one.

But yes, Danny had known from about the age of 15 that his dreams of becoming an astronaut, or even just someone in ground control, were over. Somewhere between skipping class to fight ghosts, his species, and what he later realised was the onset of clinical depression, he’d failed to get even the grades for an engineering degree at the local community college, let alone NASA’s space programme. And so, in the April of his senior year, as finals and high school graduation appeared on the horizon, he informally dropped out of school, turned his phone off, and packed his stuff into a suitcase, leaving behind only a brief note on his stripped bed.

His mother would later lament how sudden it had been, and he’d meet Jazz’s eyes across the table at one of their rare family meals as she smiled sympathetically at him, though the blush on her cheeks spoke somewhat of the guilt she felt in not having been able to help him. She knew it was a lie. She’d noticed Danny regularly skipping family meals for months before his “sudden” departure, missing curfew by hours (or not coming home at all), and how he slept in instead of going to class. She’d seen his shortened temper and the way he flinched at the mention of ghost hunting, every word against Phantom (or any ghost he knew personally, for that matter) and the gruesome things his parents would do to him on the event of his capture cutting deeper than any ectoblast he’d ever received. And yet, Jazz hadn’t helped him either. She’d tried, definitely, and he’d remind himself she was still on his side whenever he started to resent her, but he’d still fallen under her radar, as well as his teachers, his friends and his parents. He’d still left.

In the beginning, he squatted. It was almost too easy, besides crying himself to sleep every night- he could phase into anywhere he wanted, never staying more than a few nights. Unfortunately, still being relatively naive and middle-class made him too earnest for the streets, and he knew he had to find an alternative arrangement the night he overstepped the territory of other squatters and found himself cornered by three blade-happy white boys with bony cheeks and pockmarked forearms. 

After spending an uncomfortable night in open air in the forest on the edge of town, he’d remembered his lair. He’d been there once, the day he found it, flying into a white door with his own insignia emblazoned on it while thinking about his parents. It was initially a bare room, save for a mattress, much like any bedsit he might have been able to find at 18. There were two windows over the bed, and if he looked out, he could see a vague view of somewhere that might have been Amity Park, but without the sounds and smells of the city itself, it had seemed so clinical and fake. 

The reason he’d left and never gone back was because his lair was a ghost lair, not a halfa lair, and the moment he’d gotten too comfortable and switched back to human, the room turned on him and tossed him out. He remembered this as he gripped the handle, his aura brightening with fear, before swinging open the door to what he’d forgotten was such an ordinary, unassuming room. He found himself laughing at his own fear. A ghost lair couldn’t hurt Danny Phantom.

At that point, he should have rung his friends, or contacted Jazz, none of whom he’d given any updates on his whereabouts or wellbeing besides, he assumed, having been told by his parents he’d moved out to destination unknown, but he didn’t. He spent a day unpacking and getting settled, and then spent two weeks in bed. Not moving, not eating, not doing anything, besides sleeping sometimes. All he really did was think.

The point to this, if any, was to come to terms with what he’d done and where his life was. As it turned out, that was a lot harder than he ever could have imagined. Two weeks was barely enough time to even begin to work through his own self-hatred, let alone come to any meaningful conclusions about his direction in life. 

And yet, in a way, he had discovered something. Or a number of things. 

Being forced to remain in his ghost form for longer than he ever had taught him more than he expected about that form and his identity as a ghost- something, he hadn’t realised until then, he’d never had a chance to fully explore. At first, this was simply the discovery he became slightly more ghostly the longer he remained a ghost. This might have scared Danny before, when so much depended on him passing as human, but he now found himself fascinated, splitting himself in two and inspecting his clone’s fangs, slight transparency and rippling aura with a quiet enthusiasm, a muttered conversation passing between the two ghosts. 

This had gotten him out of bed. The next discovery came entirely by accident, as he found himself wishing for more space to float around in and was surprised when the room expanded. It was now the size of his old bedroom back at FentonWorks, minus the furniture- though it turned out he could create that too. His lair was his blank canvas. 

He was no interior designer, but that hadn’t stopped the young ghost spending what was probably two days straight manipulating the room in all which ways, giggling to himself before making some practical decisions. The final product wasn’t that far from the original, because jungle themes and grandiose spiral staircases tired easily. He’d made it much bigger, and with a much higher ceiling, creating a sort of overhang where he put the mattress, and no ladder down, as something of a joke with himself about his own ghostliness. Much as the view outside the windows was fake, he’d enlargened the windows so the whole room was flooded with a somewhat natural sunlight (it was always slightly wrong in a way he couldn’t explain, but he got used to it). Lastly, he added a blue feature wall, and with only a little hesitation, a ceiling painted like the night sky, complete with the most accurate portrayal of the constellations and star placements he could manage.

He’d had to leave the Ghost Zone eventually. Partly because he was still half-human, no matter how long he stayed a ghost, and the ectoplasmic background radiation of the Ghost Zone could only sustain him so long before he decided he really needed solid food. That, and the guilt of leaving his friends and family without a word was weighing down on him, worsened by the fact the only way out of the Ghost Zone at that time was though his parents’ portal.

He slipped out invisibly and phased straight out the roof of the lab and into the kitchen, glad to find he’d come out in the daytime, probably around 4pm, judging by the sun and the kids on the side of the street outside. The house was quiet. He probably should have turned back to Fenton, but for once, it made it easier for him to be discovered in his ghost form, where he could escape without a word instead of facing his mother and father.

He’d have to do it eventually, he knew that. For now, he checked the fridge, somewhat unsurprised to find it virtually bare.

He remembered his phone in his pocket. He had no signal in the Ghost Zone, so he supposed none of the texts he was probably sent got through, but the Facebook group chat between him, Tucker, Sam and Jazz (“TEAM PHANTOM NERD SQUAD” followed by a string of seemingly random emojis Tucker had added) had 209 unread messages, and the chat that was just him, Tucker and Sam (“SECRET!!! TEAM PHANTOM!!” followed by even more emojis, mostly skulls, hearts and ghosts) had 147 unread messages. He didn’t miss the other messages from people he knew ( his eye caught on “Wes Weston”, who had sent him 8 messages, the last of which was a series of question marks) before opening “SECRET!!! TEAM PHANTOM!!”.

Daniel Fenton: _nasty burger?_

It was read almost immediately by both Tucker and Sam.

Tucker “TF” Foley: _dude_

Tucker “TF” Foley: _duDE_

Tucker “TF” Foley: _yes but. you owe us a meal as well as an explanation holy fuck_

Sam Manson: _danny!!!!!!!!!_

Sam Manson: _i’m down too but tuck’s right_

Sam Manson: _I’ll be there in 15 supposing we’re talking the one near school right_

Daniel Fenton: _yeah_

He didn’t end up paying for their meals. He’d switched back to human for the first time in almost a month behind the bins of the Nasty Burger and was surprised to find he’d lost a substantial amount of weight, which did not go unnoticed by Sam. In fact, his existence, let alone his weight, did not go unnoticed by anyone in the restaurant. Why he’d thought the restaurant near the school on what he guessed was probably a school night would be the best place to appear after disappearing for a month, he’d never know.

“Dude,” Tucker began once Sam had bought Danny the biggest Mega Nasty Meal he’d accept, “You know your parents tried to get the police involved? Where have you been man, I tried your phone like a billion times and it kept saying your phone was switched off. Dick move, Danny.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Danny started, “I really am. And I can explain. But, can we do this outside? Everyone’s staring.”

“You should be used to people staring already,” Sam snarked, apparently annoyed with him now she’d finished worrying about his weight. He didn’t blame her.

“Shoulda got take-away bags,” Tucker noted, but took half of Danny’s meal and stuffed it into his satchel all the same, letting Danny carry his fries and drink.

They followed Sam outside. Round the back of the Nasty Burger, across from the drive-thru, was a patch of grass and trees, under which was a lone picnic bench that they’d always assumed wasn’t strictly part of the Nasty Burger, since it didn’t match the ones out the front of the restaurant. The other side backed onto the back of a leisure centre and a driveway out to the main road, so it wasn’t overlooked by anything except the Nasty Burger kitchens. 

While Sam was still giving him an icy stare, Tucker sat close to him as he started to talk.

He couldn’t really explain his motivations, not really. Tucker was right, it had been a dick move and he felt guilty about leaving people in the lurch, but it wasn’t so long ago that he’d forgotten how it seemed like the only way out, and he’d stand by that. Not much had changed. He still felt hopeless, he still wanted very little to do with the human realm for now, and he had no intentions of moving back in with his parents, whatever they said when he finally confronted them. When he tried to put this into words, his friends frowned.

“So you’re saying, you want to die?”

“What? No!”

“Well that’s what being a ghost is, Danny,” Sam folded her arms.

“That’s not it! I only went to the Ghost Zone because free accommodation. I dunno. Plus it would have been really hard to find somewhere to live because no one wants to take an 18 year old. Trust me, I looked online when I was planning, all of them were “21 or over” or “no students”, damn Amity Park.” 

“You planned this and you didn’t think to come to us?” Tucker looked hurt, and confused, and Danny was almost ready to cave and beg for forgiveness of his friend when Sam butted in.

“Danny, I dunno where this is coming from but you’re half-ghost, not half-human?”

“Actually, I’m both.” Danny stood up, guilt turning quickly to anger. Maybe this might have gone better if he hadn’t spent a month by himself, simmering on everything. But then, he got it already, that had been an unavoidable mistake. “And I don’t know why you think you have any right to tell me how I feel about this. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I’m NOT sorry I left. I’m done hiding, I just wanted some time for myself and after everything I’ve done for this stupid town, I think I deserve it!”

Sam stood up too. “So you spent a month selfishly ignoring everyone who cares about you to sulk, Danny, don’t dress this up as something it’s not-”

“Hey!” Tucker put a hand on both of their shoulders to sit them down. Danny acquiesced, but Sam brushed his hand aside, staying standing for a few seconds, staring down at the two boys before finally sitting down with a huff. Tucker continued.

“Look, Danny’s said he’s sorry, and I believe him. Dick move, yeah, but it happened. But Sam, you’re way out of line, and I don’t know why you’re saying what you’re saying when you’ve spent the last few weeks saying how much you missed Danny.”

“Yeah, because, I dunno, I thought… I thought…” 

“You knew he wasn’t captured, because he left a note, and it was his handwriting. What were you even expecting? Because I know what I was expecting.” Tucker turned to Danny, looking him up and down. “And I got what I was expecting. Look at him Sam. Actually look at him. He lost weight, you already saw that, he looks tired, he looks pale-”

“Hey, I am here y’know.”

“Sure you are buddy,” Tucker said, and Danny didn’t like the tone he was using. Serious Tucker. The Tucker that was the reason they were not just good friends, but best friends. “So tell Sam what you spent the last month doing. Did you go anywhere, see anyone? Did you do anything you like doing, like space stuff or flying through Amity Park? Fighting ghosts?”

Both Danny and Sam were quiet, and Tucker took that as victory, sitting back and folding his arms. Danny hadn’t been expecting for the conversation to turn, and when he’d thought Tucker had got it before, he wasn’t quite sure he realised to what extent. Tucker got it more than he did. 

Danny tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

In the end, Sam kind of got it, for a while at least. She hugged him, but still pestered him to come back to school, insisting that she’d help him study so they could at least graduate together. He told her he’d think about it. As they parted ways, she also reminded him to come back to saving Amity Park, pointing at the dent in the road that was Danny-sized. 

Tucker stayed quiet, but held him tighter and longer than he ever had, and, to Danny’s surprise, planted a chaste kiss on Danny’s cheek. Danny didn’t brush it away.

Much as it was embarrassing, being so obviously in the midst of a breakdown made talking to his parents so much easier. He’d expected them to yell or at least fret, but his mother just sighed and kissed her teeth. He took it as something that his father was clearly itching to envelop him in one of his famed bear hugs, but on catching his mother’s eye, resolved to a semi-stern frown that, were it not for the stony gaze of his mother, might have made him laugh.

And then came the denials. They hurt, but Danny supposed they couldn’t be blamed, not if they didn’t know what he was really up against. He thought about telling them, sure. But he’d thought about telling them every day for four years, every morning waking up and wondering if he could face another day of it all, whether the hard consequences of the truth were preferable to the dread of the unknown. He’d always resolved against it. And, after the guilt of Sam and Tucker, somehow his parents staring him down uncomfortably in the front room of FentonWorks as he tried to come up with an answer to “Why, Danny?” wasn’t as bad as it should have been. And his sister’s sigh didn’t so much hurt as make him grit his teeth in anger.

An hour or so of that and like always, his mother came to hug him, sweeping everything under the matt with a dry joke about “feeding him up” as she held her son stiffly. For a moment, Danny wanted to melt into her arms, cry into her shoulder, pretend with her that nothing was wrong, but he couldn’t. The confused frown on his mum’s face as he pulled from the hug and told her he had to get going told him as much. 

He knew then, there was no going back.


	2. Twenty-One

A lot of people expected great things from their twenties. Maybe Danny still did, he wasn’t sure, given he still had quite a bit of his twenties to go. Either way, he wasn’t most people. These days, he was most ghosts.

All that formally existed of Daniel Fenton was a reserved adult who turned up at his parents for dinner every Sunday and PO Box for his mail that he often forgot to check. Sometimes he would change back to human for a while, just to be able to walk down the street without anyone staring. That, and he had Facebook and Skype accounts, though he spent more time on his Facebook and Twitter accounts set-up for “Danny Phantom” (Tucker’s idea). But beyond that, Danny was, in more ways than one, a ghost.

His parents never pressed too much on where he lived and what he did, but Jazz had. He told her the truth, which was that if she went to 22 Maybury Street and waited inside the porch long enough for one of the tenants to pass through, she could catch the door behind them. After that, she should follow the damp corridor round, take the stairs to the second floor, and turn left. On her left, there would be a plain door. Technically, it was Flat 18.5, but since there was neither a post box for it, nor a number on the door, it was somewhat redundant calling it that. If, he told her, she was to open it, she’d find it wasn’t a door to anywhere besides the wall it had been fitted onto by Danny when he was 19, the summer the building had been evacuated for decontamination following a particularly nasty infestation of cockroaches. However, if she were to check the coast was clear and knock (he emphasised the first bit), and he was in, she’d find him at the door, grinning nervously and inviting her into what was now something of a studio apartment.

As for what he did, he fought ghosts, still. Or, maybe it was a little more complicated than that.

Eventually, Jazz was probably the only one who really knew what his day-to-day life was like. Tucker and Sam knew what he was up to, but in the same way he’d never been into Sam’s college dorm (he’d been to Tucker’s when he’d helped him move in) and only message them both a few times a week, they probably couldn’t really visualise it. 

Jazz, however, virtually lived with him when she was back from Harvard. She was the reason he’d felt the need to get a grip on stabilising portals, and to work out how to get his lair to accept guests and not kick them out. In a way, she was also the reason part of his lair was now a workshop, after the time she’d given him a piece of their parents’ kit and pointed him in the direction of how it might help him achieve what he wanted to in his work between the Ghost Zone and the human realm. Which in itself was complicated to explain. Somehow though, Jazz got it.

Danny may not really be sure what he was doing or where his life was going, but after the initial shock of failing his dreams, failing high school, failing his friends and family, living on his own and having everyone close to him move onto bigger and better things, he’d fallen into a few different pursuits. Initially, he’d discovered ghost peppers were an incredibly sought after (and illegal) item in the Ghost Zone, and being one of only a few who could purchase them in his local Whole Foods without a second glance, he’d found it proved quite a business. However, he seldom made any US dollars, and Ghost pesos were only so much use to him. That, and Dani returning from Peru and calling him “Dad” (which, he’d been startled to find out from Clockwork, wasn’t untrue) had rather put into perspective what he should be doing with his time.

For a while, he’d tried to find a real job, but it proved hard to hold anything down when he constantly disappeared from work to fight ghosts. He’d also spent a significant amount of time with Dani, in an attempt to, he supposed, become a father figure, or maybe sort of a cool uncle. They explored the Ghost Zone and stole his parents’ equipment to work out how to get it to avoid their ectosignatures: something he finally achieved the night before his 20th birthday. Dani then left again, and he spent a while feeling lonely, spending a few weeks in a cycle of fighting ghosts and watching old cartoon boxsets on a DVD player he’d bought on the Ghost black market, simply because he wanted one but only had Ghost pesos, all his dollars going on food.

These days, he’d describe what he was doing to Sam and Tucker as “ghost politics, sorta”. Sam had seemed very excited by that concept, and he remembered how enthusiastic she’d been about connecting the two dimensions, but this wasn’t that, not really. What she’d wanted to do was ideological, while he was doing this out of necessity. Though he didn’t mention it to anyone but Jazz, the interest had been sparked by a rather nasty run-in with the GIW, one where he’d barely gotten free in time and had to spent a week in his lair recuperating. Besides the terror of nearly getting caught, that week had made him realise he didn’t have the energy to fight ghosts all the time, and it had seemed so backwards to constantly be throwing them back into the Ghost Zone when he knew so many of them by name. Upon working out that the problem lay more with ghosts not knowing (or rather, remembering) how human culture worked, and learning that his defeat of Pariah Dark all those years ago technically made him the Ghost King, he’d tried to set down some rules. Not having any crossover with the human political system made it sort of a work in progress, since it was hard to keep ghosts non-violent if they were attacked by the GIW or the local FentonForce (his parents’ own neighbourhood-watch-type ghost fighting squads). That, and he’d been told fighting the powerful halfa in Amity Park had become something of a rite of passage for ghosts these days.

All in all, while he may not work per se, he had things going on. It’s wasn’t NASA, but it was a direction, even if he still felt a little at a loss as to what direction exactly.

It was still lonely, especially now Dani’s stuff reminded him of what he was missing, and he had very little structure to his days. Maybe moving out so soon had made him grow up quicker than he wanted to, or maybe everyone in their early twenties was struggling to find a natural sleep rhythm and yoyoing between not being able to afford to eat, and not remembering to eat. No matter how hard he tried, how many ghosts he beat, how successful his meetings and rallies were, he always felt empty, in a way that couldn’t be explained by simply not having satisfied his Obsession.

They say the answer doesn’t just announce itself, but this one knocked.

He’d been expecting a number of things from his 21st birthday. A few ghost fights; a call from his mum that was somewhat distant and that he didn’t entirely want to take, not after the shots she’d taken at him a few days prior, one of which had hit its mark with a painful outcome; a craving for ice cream the coins in his pocket couldn’t satisfy; and a meeting with Vlad to try to convince the other halfa (so far unsuccessfully) to join his new Truce scheme. What he didn’t expect was the postcard from Dani in his PO Box, or his best friend, who was supposed to be in Massachusetts, on his doorstep.

As for the startled gaze he received before the sudden leap Tucker had made into his arms? As for the kiss that somehow, inexplicably and yet so naturally had followed? There wasn’t a hint of expectation about it.

“Jeez, Tuck,” Danny couldn’t help but blush deeply as they broke apart. Maybe he’d been ghost for too long this time, but he could almost feel Tucker’s lifeforce, his beating heart, his anxiety, his glowing grin and whirring brain as he laughed awkwardly, unsure of where to go next.

“Oh man,” he said, “That was not how this was supposed to go. At all. Man.” He laughed again. Danny wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him so nervous.

“What’s “this”?” Danny asked nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. When Tucker just stared, clearly dumbfounded at where to start after sabotaging his own plan, Danny invited him in. 

It took them a while to get down to it. Since Tucker’s grand speech, much like Danny’s life plan, had been ruined by his own haste, Danny had to get it out of him slowly, in the form of small talk. Tucker wandered his apartment, asking him questions about how he lived as a ghost (“do you not have a kitchen Danny? I mean… I won’t tell Sam”) while Danny shot back some questions of his own. Once he’d pieced together that Tucker had driven two days in the middle of a research project to see him, and had slept in his car, Danny found him a towel (or as it turned out, Tucker’s towel that he’d never given back after accidentally taking it home after gym once) and let him wash away the fatigue and mouldy car smell that seem to stick to anything he touched.

It was only once Tucker was washed and dressed, and he’d dragged Danny out to a nearby diner in his awful tin can of a car that Danny could not believe he’d slept in, did it all come out.

“OK,” Tucker said, partly to Danny and partly to the stack of pancakes that had just been placed in front of him, “First things first, I’m supposed to tell you all this is coming from both of us. Me and Sam, I mean. Well, not the kiss, ‘cause I think she has a girlfriend still and um, yeah, I wasn’t supposed to do that,” he blushed. “But yeah, everything I’m telling you now, everything I came here to say, is from both of us. And, um, we were gonna say it after we graduated but I guess I knew your 21st was coming up and I didn’t want you to be alone and I just, couldn’t wait any longer. 21 is a big one, right?”

Danny swallowed. 

“I guess the bulk of it is, we miss you. I know we said we were gonna go our separate ways and that ghost fighting wasn’t a career choice you wanted us to make but, dude, I wanna make that choice. MIT is great, I have great facilities, a pretty good scholarship, the coolest team and a project I really wanna tell you everything about when I’m done with it. But I still dropped it all, and would again, to drive across like 5 states to come see you for your birthday.”

Danny wanted to make a joke about his top speed and how it probably would’ve been easier for Danny to come to him, but Tucker was holding Danny’s hands across the table and looking at him earnestly. Serious Tucker.

“Maybe Amity Park’s inside my head a bit, but really I think developing nanobot software and dissolvable silicon chips just kinda pales in comparison to what we had. I know we were kids and stuff and yada yada, and I don’t regret the time we all had apart, it really helped me realise some stuff. But ghost hunting is something else. Something no one else understands- trust me, I nearly got laughed out of the state on my first day when I showed someone my ghost classification software. Which reminds me-” his face broke into a grin, “I can sequence and catalogue ectosignatures digitally now, homemade scanner and all. I’m not applying for this job without good credentials, let alone my prior experience,” he winked.

Danny was somewhat dumbfounded. Were it anyone but Tucker (and, by default, Sam) he would’ve said this was hero worship. He wasn’t anyone doing anything special besides trying to get by, work himself out and try to make the world a better place, as much as he could, just as anyone was.

“I guess,” Tucker pulled his hands away to rub his face, hiding his eyes as he continued, “I guess we’re also sorry. Or I am, definitely, and Sam is deep down but she won’t admit it. You know what she can be like.” He looked up at Danny, who still really didn’t know what to think. 

He was right about Sam- one of the reasons it had never worked out between her and Danny was Danny’s discovery that she felt guilty about technically half-killing him. The guilt was obviously an issue for Sam, and even though Danny had never blamed her, the fact she’d manage to keep that from him so long made him wonder if he really knew her all that well.

He guessed that’s why Tucker was here and not Sam. Besides the distance, he supposed, but then, Sam’s finances let her visit Amity Park as often as she wanted really, and she sure wouldn’t have driven like Tucker had.

“One thing I realised moving out of Amity Park was how much we missed you, yeah, but also how much I was worried about you, and I kinda realised we took you for granted so much that when you started struggling. Sam kept bitching about how could you be so selfish, resenting Amity Park and wanting some space and I was like… yeah, not really? It’s been nearly six years and you still do so much for this stupid place with nothing but flack for it really. I thought it’d sort itself out but… I dunno dude, you look better than when I last saw you but you’re still. I dunno.”

He stopped short, rubbing his nose again. Danny knew what he was getting at, and he was more than aware Tucker was right, but after everything Tucker had said, he didn’t quite feel like comforting him. 

They sat in silence a while, Tucker wolfing down his pancakes, barely looking up from the plate, and Danny himself making a sizeable dent in the huge fry-up Tucker had ordered him the minute he’d started rooting through his wallet to check his budget. 

He’d forgotten how much he loved fried tomatoes.

His mind ended up wandering from the situation at hand and he remembered the interview he’d done a few months after his disappearing act when he was 18. Everything had still been a little hard to get used to, but he was back in the swing of fighting for Amity Park so maybe that was something, even if he was doing it alone, since Tucker and Sam had finals. He hung out in supermarkets a lot too- mostly so he could get the good reductions, but also because it was one of the few places he could hang for hours without having to buy anything, and his Core quite appreciated the temperature (incidentally also how he’d found out about the appeal of Ghost Peppers, after noting the Whole Foods saw far more ghost attacks than the Piggly Wiggly). 

He’d been approached one day as Fenton (which was strange, given how wont he was to sitting in the rafters as Phantom) by none other than Wes Weston, basketball enthusiast (but not, from what Danny had heard, a particular talent) and all round annoyance. Wes purported to know Danny’s secret, and had followed him round a lot during sophomore year. The whole thing had come to a close when Wes summoned Phantom and Danny blew up at him, taking a leaf out of Tucker’s book to throw down some harsh truths and maybe, he had to admit, blow of a little steam. He’d felt a little guilty after, but hey, it had done the trick.

And now, here he was, holding a tray of cheese. Danny looked down at the uniform and huffed. Of course he worked there.

“Hey Danny,” he said, no hint of the stutter Danny had gotten used to.

“Hey Wes.”

“You… You want some cheese?”

Danny was hungry, but it seemed like an awkward thing to do and he didn’t want to have to talk to Wes about whatever offer they had on cheese, so he shook his head.

When Wes made not move, Danny scowled.

“What do you want, Wes?”

“I, um, I-I…” there it was again, thought Danny, that stutter, and he braced himself for the questions, only to be surprised about what came next. “I wanted to apologise. I was out of line trying to uncover you like I did, and what you said really hit home.”

“Oh. Um. Thanks, I guess. I probably shouldn’t have been so hard on you- I mean, you were just a kid, but yeah. Thanks.”

“I wanted to… I dunno, I guess it’s a little mutually beneficial, but look, I’m doing a journalism internship at the moment at the Amity Park Post and I was wondering if I could interview you… as Phantom? I was the source of a lot of rumours back in the day and I wanted to give you the chance to set them straight. It’d be entirely on your terms, of course, but…”

He tailed off. Danny didn’t much like the idea really, and it had seemed very much more beneficial to Wes than it would have been to Danny, and yet, on the heels of what Danny considered quite an honest apology, he couldn’t seem to say no. That, and he saw an opportunity.

“Yeah, but only if you pay me.”

Wes had indeed paid him, a sum of $300 for his time initially, for which he did an hour or so interview where he was allowed to skip any question he found too intrusive, and a modest photoshoot (Wes had insisted this was to verify the article as real, but whether that was true or not, the article ended up going out as a special feature in their Sunday magazine, complete with photo splashes and a cover); and a sizeable $800 a few weeks after the story had gone to print. 

The questions had been interesting. It had been strange, coming from Wes, who knew so much about his life, both as a fellow Casper High student and as someone who stalked him for a year, so the questions had ranged from general, to intimate, to those based on false preconceptions only Wes could have come up with- particularly one about Phantom’s potential gravestone that made Danny laugh before skipping the question without comment.

Wes had asked about Sam and Tucker. 

“You can’t publish their names, Wes, they’d get into a lot of trouble, especially with college apps.”

“Ok, what if I rephrased the question to “certain individuals”. So- certain individuals have been spotted helping you out in fights, can you comment on that?”

“Ok, that works. Um… I guess, it’s true, I have help from people because like I’ve said, I’m not a malevolent spirit, so I’ve ended up with friends- human and ghost- who help me protect Amity Park. I’m really grateful for them, I owe them my life on a lot of occasions. Or my afterlife,” Danny saved, and Wes raised one eyebrow. He was itching to make a comment, but they were recording and part of the deal was that the recording (as well as the article) were to be clean of references to his human half.

“How come you’ve been fighting alone more often recently?”

Danny thought about skipping the question, and then exhaled, considering his answer. He hadn’t been bitter, but falling down, and then realising he’d been falling for a lot longer than he’d initially thought to the extent no one could reach him anymore; that had hurt. And, in retrospect, considering Tucker’s apology, maybe he should have guilted himself less for thinking that way.

“It’s my job to protect Amity Park. Or, rather, more my duty. But it’s not anyone else’s duty, especially those of humans, who can get hurt much more easily and have a much higher stake in the community. So, uh, my friends have other stuff going on, like graduating, and I want to help them honour that. Pun intended,” he grinned.

Danny looked up at Tucker, and wondered if he’d ever read that article. He’d kept a copy of the magazine, mostly because the vain side of him found those photos really flattering, and it was one of the first times he found himself wholly comfortable with the appearance of his ghost half. He knew Jazz had read it, and after she’d left it out on the kitchen table, his parents had read it too- they’d said as much when he came over for Sunday dinner. 

Tucker had to have read it. He wondered what he'd thought. It came out a little after they'd had their conversation, the three of them, about going their separate ways and following their own dreams, Danny insisting ghost hunting wasn't really a big deal, not in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe Tucker was right though. Him and his Obsession aside, Amity Park definitely had a way of getting inside your head. He wished he could have been more honest in that interview, but really, it wouldn't have changed anything.

He did wonder where Wes was now. He may not have been a professional journalist at the time but he sure was after the boost that interview must have given his career. He ought to get in touch again and see if Wes would help publicise his potential treaty and attempt to lobby for laws recognising basic rights for sentient ecto-entities.

Danny wondered how it came to pass that the person who’d benefitted least from the Danny Phantom phenomenon was himself.

“So,” Tucker began, and Danny looked up.

“So?”

“What do you say?”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked.

“I mean… Jeez. I mean, will you let me back on Team Phantom?”

Danny blinked. “What do you mean, really, you never left Team Phantom. You guys... You guys were Team Phantom.”

As if on cue, the end of his sentence ended in a mist of blue, and Danny looked at Tucker expectantly.

“Do you mind if I…”

“What do you mean, do you mind?” He looked baffled for a moment, and Danny wondered where that left him. Tucker had driven half-way across the country and bought him food, and they weren’t teenagers anymore. He didn’t want to be rude. 

“Just go!” Tucker exclaimed, and Danny sprinted from the booth towards the toilets. 

He didn’t see the way Tucker slumped down, holding his head in his hands as he shook slightly.


	3. Twenty-Five

He’d come clean to his parents about his ghost half when he was 24. He’d be lying if he said it had nothing to do with Dan.

It was difficult. In some ways more difficult than maybe if he’d done it a decade ago, but he didn’t regret waiting, even when they didn’t speak to him for a few months.

It was Jazz who had brought everything home. It was always Jazz. Jazz, who took care of him, pushed him forward, supported him in every way, whatever he chose to do, even when that was destroying their family for a while. 

She was so strong, he thought. He at least had seen how it ended in a few different timelines, and knew his parents would accept him eventually, but she had no such solace. She was over more than normal throughout those few months, both at their flat and at Danny’s lair-cum-workshop, wracked with guilt after their parents had found out she was in on the secret, and Danny let her talk about psychology theories while he helped Tucker solder the circuits of a rather complicated exoskeleton that had unfortunately failed their crash tests (and in a spectacular fashion too).

Eventually, she’d stopped talking and just watched. Then she’d asked questions, rifling through their workbench, until finally she seemed to come to a conclusion on something, and picking up a metal semi-circle with malleable rubber ends, she asked if she could borrow it.

It was a portable portal (or “porta-portal”, as Tucker had joked), and could be configured via the interface, the two parts of the semi-circle then pulled apart and flipped round to lock into a perfect, if not small, portal to the Ghost Zone. Danny wanted to integrate the design into the Fenton Thermos (which he still used, even after all these years, if not a modified one with larger capacity and a more refined beam) but getting the tech required down to the current size had been years of work in itself, so they’d put it on the back burner for a bit.

Danny nodded, waving a hand as if to say, “no matter”. Tucker frowned, but ultimately let it slide, as much used to placing his trust in his boyfriend as his boyfriend was placing trust in his sister.

He’d not really thought about what she’d wanted to use it for. He assumed something to do with a paper she’d been talking about writing. He’d not expected the teary phonecall from his mother a few days later: a voice he hadn’t heard in what seemed like forever, a voice that seemed to illicit this sharp pain, deep inside his chest, asking if he could come over to talk. He obliged, sharing a worried look with Tucker before heading out the door.

It felt like the end of something, in a good way. In the same way he’d pulled from his mother’s arms and reminded her he didn’t live with her any more all those years ago, and had known there was a finality to it, there was no getting back the feeling before he stepped into his childhood home to be embraced by his parents. The moment he’d spent in the snow, standing on the doorstep as he waited, those anxious seconds passing as he waited for someone to answer, had felt like a second death. 

Except, being born again as a ghost wasn’t quite so painful as it had been the first time round.

His ghost half couldn’t help but feed a little on the overflowing guilt and regret and excitement (and fear, always a little bit of fear) that bled onto him as his father clasped him tightly to his chest.

They’d clearly had some time to think, and used it wisely. Jazz had told him later her showing them his (“mostly Tucker’s” he’d added) invention was little more than a catalyst. She’d left her scrapbooks there, on their coffee table, and they’d clearly read them. Ten years of photos, articles, the interview, then press releases, legal documents, patent and adoption applications, and eventually the second interview, the one where he talked about his run-ins with the GIW, his daughter, and his fear. Then came Danny’s favourite, the same photo, clipped from a newspaper, that he had framed by his front door- thousands of people marching to city hall in his name, the result of an honest and heartfelt interview, more fans than he knew what to do with, and the triumph of the age of social media. Of course, there had been a campaign before that, and the march itself was only a single step in a much longer process, but Danny’s heart swelled with pride at that photo.

So did his parents. When they told him they were proud of him, for the first time in a long time, he believed them, and he cried.

Then they offered him a job, their eyes glimmering at the memory of the porta-portal and he realised, like Sam, they’d never truly get it. But maybe that didn’t matter so much anymore. Sam had come to visit the previous fall, complimenting their new apartment politely, before the three of them dissolved into giggles and spent the rest of the evening eating pizza and watching video games as if they’d never stopped being 14. They’d taken her to the workshop, explained things to her, introduced her to the campaign volunteers, and she’d smiled and told them she was proud of them, her eyes lingering on Danny. That meant something, just as it had when his parents had said it, and it didn’t matter that she didn’t get it. It didn’t matter they didn’t get it.

Sam was working as an animator in California and from what Danny could tell from social media, living the high life, with a beautiful apartment, supportive girlfriend and relatively few money troubles, even after her parents cut her off. That was more what he’d imagined for himself, but it had never been realistic (except perhaps being cut off for being bisexual, that one he could still fulfil, maybe).

Did he wish he’d had more support when he was younger? Of course. He sometime felt like he’d lost years of his life, just trying to work thing out, get his head straight. Now he was an adult, imbued with all the powers and perspectives that entailed, it angered him imagining a child slipping so easily through the cracks like he had. It wasn’t hard to see why he was so insistent on giving Dani the family, support and education she needed, even if that meant a fake identity, less travel than she would have liked, and the spare room of a couple not recognised by the state. 

Did he regret what had happened as a result? Sure, it would have been damn nice not to feel so lost, for it to be easier to get out of bed some days, to not feel like he was broken. But, if Tucker caught him in a good mood, one quiet night where the halfa was curled up on the sofa and leant on his shoulder, Danny would tell him he didn’t regret getting lost, because being found again made him realise how much everything and everyone meant to him.

Tucker didn’t regret anything either. Not the arguments he’d had with his parents about moving back to Amity Park; not forcing Danny to come clean on his secret with Valerie and the pain he’d had to watch his friends both endure in the process; not the ghost fights, not even the one that lost him two fingers on his dominant hand. His MIT professors probably thought him crazy, and his parents still didn’t really approve, though at least these days they kept that to themselves. It didn’t bother him. He was well-aware of the decision he was making when he moved back to Illinois. It had been harder to convince Danny. Serious Tucker had reared his head more times than Regular Tucker would have liked, in argument after argument in which Tucker tried to get it into Danny’s head that he wasn’t doing this out of guilt, and that the insinuation he was was to overlook the agency of a highly intelligent young man. Despite all this, somewhere around that time, their nights had become closer and their goodbyes had become kisses, and in retrospect, maybe a relationship was exactly what was needed to get that into Danny’s thick skull. That was probably an unhealthy basis for things, but hindsight was 20:20 and they were still going strong, three years on.

Well, mostly. Tucker had come clean to his parents about the exact nature of their relationship only a few months after they’d started dating, whereas the Fentons still didn’t know Danny even shared an apartment with Tucker, let alone a bed. After Danny came clean about his ghost-half, it only seemed natural that telling his parents about his boyfriend of 3 years would come soon after. And yet, it didn’t, and Tucker grew restless.

Tucker was right, of course. Heck, a gay black man knew tenfold Danny’s turmoil. He was right to be angry- or rather, upset. This wasn’t like their other fights, they didn’t talk it through properly, it was simply a series of microaggressions slipped into conversations, a sigh when Danny left to meet with his parents, a sad reminder that he loved him, more than anything in the world, but that he was tired, tired in a way no amount of Sunday morning lie-ins (Tucker’s favourite) could fix.

Danny loved Tucker too, and that was exactly the issue. His ghost half was something else. He didn’t love being a ghost, but he no longer resented it either. It put him in a position of fear, but also one of power, and most of the time, the GIW and government debates on ghost rights notwithstanding, they balanced each other out. He’d come to terms with being a halfa. Being queer, not so much. 

His biggest worry was Tucker. He’d never tell the other man, but the thought of revealing himself and his relationship and someone going for Tucker set off his Obsession in a big way. Dani had come home from school one day to find him pacing in distress as Phantom, unable to quell the anxiety in his human half or the deep, gnawing sense of an Obsession unsatisfied it produced in his ghost half.

Of course, once Dani knew what was up it didn’t take long for Tucker to get wind of it. Something snapped.

“Goddammit, I know about this Obsession stuff and your depression but I’m so sick and tired of this Danny. I want to be sympathetic, Lord knows I want nothing more in the world to put this behind us and work through those issues as a family, but I can’t anymore. I’ve known you twenty years and I know there’s more to it that just that. Sure, they’re obstacles, but you’ve overcome worse so stop doubting my decisions, stop doubting our relationship and then telling me you still love me and expecting me to just roll over and take it. I’m not your sidekick, I’m your partner, and Dani, she’s your daughter, and deep down, you know we all deserve better. So FIX IT, Danny.”

Upset and Tucker’s anger didn’t mix well with ghost-fuelled agitation (the more volatile, unpredictable kind, the area of his emotions he didn’t think he’d ever be able to properly control, simply by their nature) and Danny flew off in a huff to calm down in his lair. He’d lain on a bare mattress, picking holes in Tucker’s argument and berating himself for not being able to better control his Obsession before falling into a dreamless sleep. 

When he awoke, artificial sunlight filtering through the dusty window and no Tucker pottering around, humming to himself as he got to work on something brilliant, something that showed a nuanced understanding of paratechnology and ghost ethics and politics, an understanding only Tucker, the man who’d sacrificed probable success for a modest career helping the cause of the man he loved, could possess- he found he knew what he had to do.

It was stupid that the halfa who could control ice with his mind should slip on black ice on the way to his parents, not least because he didn’t need to walk the last block anymore.

It was stupider still (or so he thought) that for all the ghost fights, that his biggest injury come from doing something so simple as falling into a road, in front of an oncoming van.

He was told he should have died. Unfortunately, he was already dead, but the doctors needn’t know that, even when trying to work out why his dog tag should insist it was fine his vitals were so terribly nonsensical.

Of course he’d gone intangible, but only a split second after impact, and only for the split second it took for his body to hurtle across the air and into the snow, where he blacked out. So indeed, no death, but he did get a fractured femur, a few broken ribs, a little internal bleeding and a nasty knock to the head (though thankfully no fractures there).  
He awoke to the sound of rain and the sight of the man he loved, expression softly lit by a desk-lamp by his bed as he read a book. “The Castle of Otranto” apparently, though since when Tucker had been into ghost stories, he didn’t know.

Tucker wasn’t mad with him. He was upset, again, mostly because of the whole getting hit by a van thing, but Danny was pretty sure it was illegal to be properly mad with people in hospital beds. That said, he’d been interrupted in the middle of an errand, and confessed to Tucker as much. Tucker shushed him and told him it didn’t matter, not at the moment, it could wait, but Danny caught the gentle smirk all the same.

Someone out there had obviously decided he’d suffered enough, because coming out with it to his parents was surprisingly easy.

“Tucker barely left your side Danny, he’s been worried sick about you. I think Sam’s flying in this evening too but he probably already mentioned that.”

“He… He didn’t. And, um, about that. I have something to tell you guys.”

“Sweetie, we already know you’re half-ghost…”

“No… What! Not that. Jeez, I don’t have memory problems,” he muttered, though he had to admit, the shaved head and stitches probably weren’t helping matters. “No… I… I was on the way to tell you actually, when I got hit I mean… Um… See… Uh, Tucker and I are dating. He’s my boyfriend.”

“Aw, sweetie, that’s…” Maddie Fenton looked over at her husband to gauge his reaction before continuing, “…Lovely!”

“You’re not mad?”

“I wouldn’t say we’d figured it out sweetie, but we had our suspicions. There had to be something that bought Tucker back to Amity Park, and you were so cagey about your living situation.”

“We’re not that dense Danno, give us credit!”

“You didn’t notice I was half-ghost for a decade.”

“Too soon, Danny-boy,” Jack muttered, but when he caught Danny’s eye and saw the younger man worried he’d upset him, he chuckled.

“Well I’m glad you didn’t take a decade to tell us this time,” his mother added, a hint of firmness to her voice, as if trying to weed out any more secrets while she was there. He said nothing, satisfaction simply washing across his face as he closed his eyes in bliss.

Except he wasn’t finished. He knew he’d hurt Tucker, badly. 

“Sam,” he’d began sternly, “Do you think I should… Do you think Tucker would marry me?”

“Hate to dash your hopes and dreams ghost boy,” she said through a mouthful of grapes, “But can you do that? Like. Legally I mean.”

“Yeah, in June. Or, um, July really. They passed it at the end of last month, hence it’s on my mind I guess.” He took a grape, and Sam looked momentarily offended, before remembering they were his in the first place and smirking.

“Really? Good to know huh.”

“Yeah, makes you wonder what the point of campaigning for ghost rights to be recognised by the state when human rights aren’t even there yet.”

“True. Though you’re doing important work Danny, and believe me, the sooner you realise you can’t fix everything in the world, the happier you will be.”

“Is that the secret to it, huh,” Danny chuckled, thinking back to pre-college Sam. Though, really, she’d started milding in senior year, somewhere between the stress of college applications, the shock of Danny’s disappearance, and general maturing.

“Yeah, that and living somewhere non-haunted that gets actual sunlight,” she said, sticking out a pierced tongue. “And, yeah, I guess, Aaliyah.”

“So you think me and Tucker would…?”

“Danny, I can’t answer that, that’s literally the point of proposing marriage is that you’re supposed to ask _him_.” She paused, watching Danny avoid her gaze, twiddling his thumbs. “But… I mean… You have my blessing. I… After everything… I want you to find happiness. Tucker too, of course, I love him to bits and I’m sure you’ll make him the happiest man in the world, but I’ll never stop feeling bad for what happened to you so, I guess, I…” She almost tailed off, but when Danny turned to look at her, she seemed to find something in herself, some reason to tear her own gaze from his ECG monitor and tell him the truth: “There’s always going to be a little of what we had hanging around, and that’s not a bad thing. It just means I care a lot about you.”

“I know. And please don’t feel bad about… what happened, the accident and stuff. I don’t think I’d go back and change it, not anymore. Not to mention, I wouldn’t be here without my ghost powers,” he said, and looked somewhat despondently at his leg-cast.

“Oh yeah, what’s happening with that? As ever, you kinda sucked at answering the question “How are you doing Danny?” She was chuckling, a light in her eyes, and Danny hadn’t realised how sad he might have looked until she caught his expression and her face dropped. “Oh no.”

“No, no,” he shook his hands and immediately grimaced at the pain in his chest, “It’s not that bad. Just, I think fast healing wasn’t so great this time because they said the fracture in my femur had already started fusing back together when they got to it, and you can’t really re-break a femur.”

“So?”

“So a permanent limp and chronic pain, and probably early-onset arthritis, maybe.”

“Oh Danny.”

“I can still fly. It’s not that bad. Could be a lot worse.”

“That’s not the point.”

Danny huffed, unsure of what to say to that. His Obsession didn’t want people worrying about it, but Danny, Danny the human, really wanted someone to tell him it was all going to be OK, even though the painkillers he’d been prescribed didn’t totally work on his ghost half, even though he’d have this cast on for a while longer than he was used to, probably until after his birthday, even though it hurt and he was upset.

Sam stroked his hair though, which was good enough for a while. He appreciated the company.

“Hey, there haven’t been any ghost attacks while you’ve been here.”

“Good to know,” Danny said, though he didn’t sound convinced.

“I’d argue it was testament to the good work you’ve been doing with the Truce scheme.” 

“Yeah, besides Vlad. Wait- you know about that?” he exclaimed, sitting up.

“Tucker’s not as secretive as you. That and you can take the girl out of Amity Park, but you can’t take Amity Park out of the girl.”

“Word,” came a voice, and Tucker appeared in the doorway. “Hey Sam!”

“Hey Tuck!” 

Danny smiled as the two embraced, before Sam’s attention turned back to him.

“Hey, I’m only in town for a few days since I kinda just upped and left really suddenly, you guys wanna hang out tonight for old times sake?” Tucker opened his mouth to protest, but Sam, as ever, was one step ahead, “I didn’t mean go out, I mean, like, we’ve still got a while to go on visiting hours, I could, I dunno, go pick up some takeout and bring it up?”

“Oh, uh, sure. Here, I have a twenty somewhere…” Tucker fumbled in his rucksack, but Sam put a neatly manicured hand over his to stop him.

“It’s on me, if you let me crash at yours tonight.”

“Sure,” Tucker grinned goofily, and gave Sam another hug before she disappeared with a wave.

Tucker sat down next to Danny, sighing as if he’d had a long day. He probably had, Danny thought- they lived too far out for Dani to get a bus home and neither of them were too keen on her flying in daylight so Tucker would have had to pick her up from Casper High before dropping her home and coming back to the hospital on the same side of town.

“It’s always nice to see Sam again.”

“It’d be nicer if it wasn’t like this, though I guess we’re still getting to hang out,” Danny said, and it came out more despondently than he’d intended. His heart felt heavy.

Tucker seemed to notice, and looked up. “What were you guys talking about anyway?” 

Remembering what he’d posited to Sam, Danny flushed slightly, before remembering what Tucker had overheard and making the save, “Just the lack of ghost attacks in the last week.”

There was a pause, and then, without warning, Danny was crying.

He felt so stupid, as if he didn’t have control over it and this was his body out to embarrass him. Tucker’s look of surprise said what he felt, and he wanted to tell Tucker that, to laugh it off, but by that point he could barely get his words out for the sniffing and hiccups. 

Then came Tucker’s embrace, what he’d wanted from the start, the warmth and the smell of cocoa butter and a chapped pair of lips pressed to his cheek, and Danny stopped feeling embarrassed and let it all out.

“Dude, what’s up? Man, what were you and Sam really talking about?” He pulled away, smiling sadly, “Did her puppy die or something?” Danny tried for a watery smile, but Tucker obviously wasn’t convinced, and stopped trying to cheer him up. Serious Tucker wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Everything just getting on top of you, huh?”

Danny nodded, tears starting anew, and Tucker resolved to just holding him, awkwardly leant over the bedframe, hips twisted, letting Danny sniffle into his shoulder.

“What did I do to deserve you, Tuck,” Danny sighed when he could finally bring himself to talk again. 

“Don’t say that.” Danny could hear the baritone of his voice in his chest from where he was nestled. “I’m not someone who needs “deserving”, I love you and that’s the truth of it.”

It slipped out.

“Will you marry me?” 

Tucker leant back suddenly, and Danny began to panic. He didn’t want to take it back- he’d finally said it, after all these months of quietly following the legalisation process, thinking about it all the while, and it was the most honest thing he’d said in the last few months- but he didn’t want to deal with Tucker’s rejection, not even if, knowing Tucker, he let him down gently.

Tucker had an unreadable expression on his face, something like a smirk, but surprised at the same time. Or was it disgust?

“What, no rings?”

“I…”

“Wait! Lucky for you…” Tucker fumbled in his bag again, and pulled out, of all things, an open packet of Haribo, which he then began to search through.

Then Danny saw the gummy ring and his fiancé’s shit-eating grin and he laughed out loud.

“Put you hand out then,” he smirked.

“Hey wait, I was the one asking you!” Danny protested, wiping his face and obliging all the same.

“Yes, but you didn’t prepare properly, so I’m taking the privilege from you, Mr Fenton. Or should I say, Mr Foley,” he winked, slipping the gummy ring up Danny’s finger.

“Who says I’m taking your name? “Foley” doesn’t rhyme with “Phantom”,” Danny giggled.

“I’m hurt, you’d break your boyfriend’s heart for the sake of word-play? What am I saying, of course you would,” Tucker joked, leaning over to kiss him.

“Give me one then, don’t think I’m not going to put candy on your finger too.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Tucker searched around the bag, eating a fried-egg as he went, before handing Danny another gummy ring and offering his good hand with a flourish. By some miracle, Danny didn’t start crying again as he manoeuvred the ring onto Tucker’s finger.

Tucker went to kiss Danny’s hand, and sneakily ate the ring from his finger before Danny could admire it. It was when Danny was berating him for this that Sam walked in.

“Are you ruining your dinner?” she scolded, noting the Haribo packet now sat on the bed.

“Tucker is,” Danny laughed, and Tucker held up their hands next to each other, as if they still matched. It took Sam a second and a glimpse at Danny’s expression- a decidedly pink one, somewhere between pleased and embarrassed- before Sam twigged.

“You proposed with gummy rings?” She laughed to herself, setting the bag of what smelt like curry down on the floor and putting a hand to her face. “I want a photo of you dweebs. Danny, you put a ring on too.”

“Tucker ate mine.”

“Why did I even ask,” she laughed but behind her camera phone there was a softness, and playful twinkle in her eye. She made sure to tell them later, ever so softly, in an almost un-Sam-like way, that she loved them both very much before leaving with Tucker and leaving Danny to grin down at his candy-embellished ring finger.

His final amends were made a week and a half later, when the doctor handed him a prescription for Sertraline, as well as some mild narcotics for the pain in his leg. Strange that it took only having one good leg for him to take a step in the right direction, Tucker had noted after, and Danny groaned.

Danny’s 25th was always going to be a quiet affair, even without the casted leg and shorn hair.

He rose early with the intentions of heading to Clockwork’s lair, only to find the ghost seated at their kitchen table, his pale blue aura out of place in the orange glow of dawn.  
“Clockwork!” He’d thought through this conversation quite a few times in the past few weeks, but now it came down to it, he found himself dumbfounded. Clockwork, however, always had the time for eloquence.

“Happy Birthday Daniel.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, “I mean, uh. Thanks.” Rubbing the back of his neck and switching to ghost form out of what felt like etiquette, he started with something that in retrospect probably sounded like an accusation, but that was all the barely-awake half-ghost could manage, “I… uh, was actually on my way to come see you.”

“So I foresaw. But I’m sure you’re aware, the Observants aren’t really fans of yours, and today of all days called for a little… delicacy.”

“Yeah, uh… About that… Is that, is it really over?”

Clockwork smirked. “Do you want the long or short answer?”

“I want the truth,” Danny scowled.

“Yes and no. It was over the moment you defeated, I think you call him “Dan”, as a moment that solidified every other moment following that where you would vow against following in his footsteps. In the same breath, there are infinite timelines and theoretically, every moment you’re actively choosing a life different to that one, even after today, is important.”

Danny’s heart dropped, and his disappointment obviously showed on his face, as for a split second, Clockwork seemed to panic, quickly continuing, “That said, I wouldn’t have come all this way to sit here if that were the case. Dan’s timeline is a closed loop, and your timeline is far enough from any timelines in which anything similar might happen after this point that, I would say, you would be right to celebrate today.”

Danny squinted in concentration for a moment, muttering back to himself what the elder ghost had said, before letting a cautious, self-satisfied smirk cross his face, which Clockwork almost returned.

Clockwork rejected his invitation to Danny’s birthday party, and left before Tucker awoke, though not without passing on congratulations to the newly-engaged. Tucker had planned a little get-together- just the people who knew what the date, what seeing the sun set on a peaceful Amity Park on his first day of being 25 meant to Danny Fenton; who saw the tears in his eyes when he turned back to the small party- Tucker, Dani, Valerie, Damon, Jazz, Maddie and Jack, and at the back of the room, invisible for the moment, Vlad- and understood wholeheartedly. 

Danny had always anticipated that moment to be one of great relief, and while he hadn’t been wrong, he’d found himself more overwhelmed at where his half-life had got to.

He’d meant what he’d said to Sam now, about not regretting that day in his parent’s basement. He was pretty sure life (or half-life) was supposed to have tribulations, and as his had gone, he’d didn’t think he’d got a bad hand. Sure, there was plenty more to come: married life, finalising Dani’s adoption, pushing ghost rights through the state legislature, getting the cast off his leg (it was definitely irritating him) and plenty more only Clockwork could ever anticipate, but he looked around him at the smiles of people who’d once hunted him and found solace in their contentment and laughter. He could do this. He’d made mistakes and he’d probably continue to make them, and there was plenty more ghost butt to kick, but tonight, nothing mattered beyond his front room and the people in it.

It was strange, he thought. He’d never been out to achieve anything specific beyond protecting Amity Park, and somehow, he’d ended up here. Happy.


End file.
